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About The Fixer Upper

• Paperback: 448 pages• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (June 15, 2010)

After her boss in a high-powered Washington public relations firm is caught in a political scandal, fledgling lobbyist Dempsey Jo Killebrew is left almost broke, unemployed, and homeless. Out of options, she reluctantly accepts her father’s offer to help refurbish Birdsong, the old family place he recently inherited in Guthrie, Georgia. All it will take, he tells her, is a little paint and some TLC to turn the fading Victorian mansion into a real-estate cash cow.

But, oh, is Dempsey in for a surprise when she arrives in Guthrie. “Bird Droppings” would more aptly describe the moldering Pepto Bismol–pink dump with duct-taped windows and a driveway full of junk. There’s also a murderously grumpy old lady, one of Dempsey’s distant relations, who has claimed squatter’s rights and isn’t moving out. Ever.

Furthermore, everyone in Guthrie seems to know Dempsey’s business, from a smooth-talking real-estate agent to a cute lawyer who owns the local newspaper. It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the pesky FBI agents who show up on Dempsey’s doorstep, hoping to pry information about her ex-boss from her.

All Dempsey can do is roll up her sleeves and get to work. And before long, what started as a job of necessity somehow becomes a labor of love and, ultimately, a journey that takes her to a place she never expected—back home again.

Photo Credit: Deborah Feingold

About Mary Kay

New York Times bestselling author Mary Kay Andrews is a native of St. Petersburg, Florida, and a diplomate of the Maas Brothers Department Store Charm School. She also has a journalism degree from The University of Georgia. (Go Dogs.) After a 14-year career as a reporter, mainly at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she quit newspapers to make a living telling lies. She wrote 10 critically acclaimed mysteries, including the Callahan Garrity mystery series, under her real name, Kathy Hogan Trocheck. Her new alias is a combination of her children’s names. Married to her high school sweetheart, she mostly lives in Atlanta, although sometimes also on Tybee Island, Georgia.

Congrats to our February Book Club of the Month Winners! Kathy and Princeton II won THE GOOD LUCK OF RIGHT NOW by Matthew Quick, Julie and the Booking Mamas won RULES FOR THE PERPETUAL DIET by K. S. R. Burns, Cynthia and the Downtown Lunchtime Book Club won MIRAMONT'S GHOST by Elizabeth Hall, Michael and the Desert Reads book club won SCENT OF BUTTERFLIES by Dora Levy Mossanen, and Linda and the Hettinger Book Club won THE SUN GOD'S HEIR by Elliott Baker.